Stuff Black People Hate

Here’s a strange phenomenon in the DC area: the non-black here people love hiphop (esp. non-black, non-white people), yet the vast majority of the places where the best hiphop DJs spin are labeled ‘black clubs’ and are therefore rarely frequented by these non-blacks who claim to enjoy the music.

Figure 1: Asians fear this like blacks fear diabetes

Black clubs are the only clubs in this area that are segregated by race*. All the other clubs are pretty well mixed: you’ll find whites, asians, indians, persians, hispanics, arabs, and even a few black people (usually men that are chasing after asian or white women) all in the same place.

*Notwithstanding the exception of a few Irish bars featuring extremely loud music and unwashed frat boys that, as far as I can tell, only other unwashed frat boys and the white women who love them can stand.

Figure 2: ……

There is a common thread that runs through all the mixed clubs:

The music is uncompromisingly atrocious.

The DJ is always, without fail, an asian/white/persian dude with a motherfucking iPod or two, an overly complicated computer-based mechanism for managing the tracks, and no clue at all how to mix or, in some cases, what mixing even is.

Figure 3: Completely ridiculous

The fucker will play moderately acceptable hiphop tracks for awhile, which the entire crowd will dance enthusiastically to. Then, without fail, he’ll start oscillating between god-awful southern hiphop and utterly undanceable shit by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. If you go to a mixed club in DC, you’ll spend 50%+ of your night listening to this crap.

When Joan Jett and the southern hiphop starts, every non-white person in the room stops dancing** and adopts a determined scowl that would make Clint Eastwood proud. They complain to one another “this DJ sucks!” and “I can’t believe they’re playing this music!” But I ask…why can’t you believe it? Mixed clubs play the same music and feature the same DJs week in and week out, and you keep returning to these clubs week in and week out. They play shitty music and you keep coming back, so naturally any club owner will assume that you’re coming back because you like what you hear.

Figure 4: Hates Joan Jett, yet can’t stay away

**White people LOVE Joan Jett, especially that song “I Love Rock N’ Roll”. Many white people are actually excluded from the subtle racism addressed in the article because a.) you WILL find white people at black clubs and b.) since white people love Joan Jett, they aren’t just attending clubs that play her music to avoid black people.

The subtle racism lies in the reason these people keep returning to mixed clubs in spite of their shittyness: they’re avoiding the black people at places where good music is played.

Let’s face facts - most people have the preconception that black people become extremely violent in clubs. It’s ironic, because I’ve seen countless fights break out at mixed clubs, and not one fight at a black club. This stereotype can be blamed partly on an age-old racial subtext and unfair media practices, and partly on DMX in the movie “Romeo Must Die” (who brandished a machine gun and ordered anyone who isn’t black to get out of his club. I’m pretty sure non-blacks think this is a regular occurrence at black clubs, kinda like last call.)

Figure 5: Thanks, asshole

As such, this racist fear of black people keeps non-blacks out of black clubs and away from good music - and no one in these non-black circles wants to be the first to suggest a trip to H2O or Zanzibar because, while ‘tolerance’ is a good thing, it’s not cool yet to be a nigger lover.

Of course, no one will ever admit this. God bless America.

The Electric Slide is very similar to the Federal Reserve, in that its creation is shrouded in mystery, our willingness to let it flourish boggles the mind, and people continue tolerate it despite the fact that they hate it and there’s no law stating that they have to.

I first saw the Electric Slide performed at my Aunt Brenda’s house when I was about 8 years old, and I immediately drew two conclusions.

1. Every single person in my family is an asshole
2. The stupidity of the dance itself is exceeded only by the stupidity of the song that it’s danced to

Figure 1: Organized stupidity

Everyone I know derides the song and the dance as patently ridiculous (even when it was a popular song at clubs), and yet for some reason when Marcia Griffith’s tinny voice inevitably poisons the air at any large family gathering, I’m the only jerkoff who doesn’t know how to do the dance. The same people who once claimed to hate the song are suddenly on the dance floor or in the yard with shit-eating grins on their faces, singing along to the song’s asinine lyrics, and putting way too much effort into the last step of the cycle in the dance (see Figure 1).

The thing that really confuses the hell out of me is how the Electric Slide became so popular among black people. The Electric Slide is completely antithetical to black dancing: it’s a line dance (didn’t think about that, did ya?), it’s repetitive, it offers zero chance for creativity, there’s nothing sexual about it, there’s no potential for a remix, and white people can do it as well as black people without even trying that hard (except, apparently, for the ferociously uncomfortable-looking dude on the far right in Figure 1).

I’m surprised that so many people were shocked that the DC sniper was black, because if black people are capable of enjoying the Electric Slide, then we’re certainly capable of gunning down people at gas stations. The Electric Slide is responsible for more deaths every day than Malvo and Mohammed perpetrated in their assholerous three weeks. I base this claim on nothing in particular.

Figure 2: Enjoys the Electric Slide

Figure 1: Hiphop’s Panacea

The term “non-black hip hop scholar” is almost redundant, because just about anyone I’ve ever met who fits the following criteria:

• Knows the year that virtually any hiphop album/single was released
• Vigorously defends hiphop from those who say it’s all about violence and misogyny
• Has an iPod so chock full of ill-gotten hiphop tracks that you almost develop sympathy for the RIAA
• Loves loves loves loves loves Tribe Called Quest and/or Mos Def and/or Talib Kweli
• Takes pride in knowing about ‘underground’ (a wannabe Afro-urban partial appropriation of the term ‘Indie’) rap artists